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Wankel's Warriors
Fan-made, non-canon gang or gang-cult. Fans of the idea of theoretical improvements in overall engine efficiency, coupled with a perceived reduction in maintenance problems -- ("fewer parts equals fewer headaches," or so some mechanics say) -- have often wondered if there might be an advantage in equipping a gang with vehicles which are exclusively powered by the Wankel Rotary Engine. (Or possibly that engine type, used in combination with a Turbonique device.) It is even rumored that some chapters experimented with motorcycles and/or trikes, and the like, powered via that type of engine: with at least limited success in the field. (But surely the rumors of Wankel-powered Mo-Peds and Go-Karts sometimes being used as high-speed, small-target-area, scout vehicles and/or mine and spike layers, are not to be trusted?!) On the surface, powering a gang's vehicles with variations or variants of that relatively rare engine type may sound like a good idea: but practical realities relating to the unfortunate tendency of convoy members to make fun of the engine designer's name, have made it hard for this gang to consistently strike fear into the hearts of their intended victims. Take, for instance, an earlier version of this gang's name: "Wankel's Wasters". While the unfamiliar, buzz-bomb shrieks of the higher-rpm versions of this engine type did indeed disturb some convoy members, at first, eventually an over-educated smart-aleck (rumored to have been a convoy's New Weapons Tech) got the bright idea of derisively renaming the gang as "Wankers and Wastrels". A convoy gunner further revised that nickname into "Wasted Wankers" ... and it soon became a game with some Op Teams and convoy members and the like, to invent more and more rude, derisive, unauthorized revisions to this gang's name. For a time, the very important psychological advantage was all but lost, in many (but not necessarily all) locales and situations. The distinctive, formerly worrisome sounds of various very high-rpm experimental engine's shrieks, dopplering closer and closer to a convoy or other intended victim, for a time no longer struck anywhere near as much fear into personnel. This is because strides were being made, with some promising success, to use the unusually high-pitched engine noise against those who were employing them: by creating some experimental Sound Localization Systems, which took advantage of the idea that while lower (bass) sounds are very difficult to localize and pinpoint accurately, the higher the pitch is of a given noise, the easier it is to localize precisely where that noise is coming from. Once these new counter-measures began to take a heavy toll on such vehicle's numbers, and gang mechanics began figuring out what was happening, experiments with high-efficiency and noise-cancelling exhaust-muffling systems began to be employed: which returned the "Spook Value" of attacks by these gangs, since they could sound very loud or dead silent, at will. That period of lessened tension ended, or so legend says, when over-sensitive members of one chapter of this gang allegedly augmented one of their spare vehicles with a Turbonique device; and added to that with a powerful, short-term rocket assist; and chained or slaved it to several smaller vehicles which had first been stripped of anything rare or valuable, such as engine components and the like, and then equipped with crude ejection seats for the drivers: to create the equivalent of a near suicidal, multi-warhead, road-borne missile. Thorough investigation of what was left of the armoured big-rig the primary, ram-equipped vehicle had gone through (neatly cutting it in half), and the assorted damage done to the convoy's various guard vehicles (which ended up half-mangled, and strewn all over the landscape) convinced many Op Teams and Convoy Escorts to cut back on making their enemies needlessly angry. The tipping point, in coming to that conclusion, came about when Scav Teams sorted through the twisted wreckage, and began keeping track of how many times someone had obsessively and painstakingly welded slogans like "Wank This!" onto nearly all sides of the road missile's thickest armour plating -- apparently in the hopes that the message (to have others quit picking on the gang's name) -- would be read and understood, even after the fires and other general carnage which had resulted from the use of the primary and slaved vehicles. The fact that the gang, after the attack, had made little effort to retrieve any of the Scav, likely weighed heavily on various person's decision to be less offensive. (It's bad enough when an enemy just wants your stuff ... let alone, when they only want you dead!) Naming issues aside, this gang's local chapters are at times a wisely feared part of the necessity to travel outside of various PZ's -- not least because their techs and mechanics are always experimenting with various ways to power vehicles which accelerate in unexpected ways, and are thus harder to predict. (And shoot at!) See Also Gang Names Dark Future: Living Rulebook Wiki Dark_Future:_The_Earth_2095 Index